Giants quarterback Eli Manning sticks to his guns, believing he's among NFL's top five at position

Associated PressGiants quarterback Eli Manning won't back down from talk that he's among the NFL's top-5 quarterbacks.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — All day yesterday, there was on-air and on-line analysis about Eli Manning’s belief he’s a top-5 NFL quarterback and in the same class as Tom Brady.

Some of it raised an interesting point: What exactly was Manning supposed to say when he was asked on Tuesday by ESPN Radio’s Michael Kay if he believes he’s in that upper echelon?

Yesterday, when Manning was asked by WFAN’s Mike Francesa to clarify that statement, which some believed was quite the assumption on his part, guess what he said.

“It was kind of like, what am I supposed to say? ‘No, I don’t think so?’” Manning said. “I’m trying to compete, I’m trying to be the best quarterback and get to a championship. That’s what I’m trying to do every year.”

By now, plenty has been said about Manning’s 2010 season in which he threw a career-high 25 interceptions.

Never mind nine of those were tipped by either one of his receivers or a defensive linemen and another was ripped out of Steve Smith’s hands. The fact is Manning more than doubled his interception total from 2008 when he and the Giants tied a record for fewest turnovers in a season.

That’s not the stuff of elite quarterbacks, whether Manning is backed into a corner or not.

“I do, but what would you expect him to say?” head coach Tom Coughlin said when asked if he agrees with Manning’s elite-status comment, thus continuing the theme of yesterday. “He is for me.”

Still, the interceptions ...

“Oh, you definitely can improve and I’m sure he will,” Coughlin said. “He had a tipped-ball interception at the end of the day (Tuesday) which ticked everybody off. He definitely will make a change. He’s so much aware of it and so anti-turnover that he will.”

No one is more anti-turnover than Coughlin, so when a ball from David Carr glanced off Victor Cruz’s hands for an interception yesterday his stomach surely turned. Each dropped or tipped pass means Manning’s margin for error remains small.

And with Smith gone to the Eagles and Kevin Boss now a Raider, there go a pair of safety valves.

Still, Manning believes he can be a “single-digit interception guy,” as Brady was last year and in 2007.

“What you’ve got to do is cut down on the mental mistakes,” Manning said on WFAN. “There are some that are just bad decisions; those are on me. Some are tipped that are not on me, some are tipped because they’re high and I’ll take (the blame) for those.”

Coughlin believes the tipped balls can be eliminated at times.

“Sometimes it’s better to, instead of take a risk like that, throw it away,” Coughlin said. “Sometimes it’s the high balls. A little more accuracy perhaps.”

Manning thinks that could be in the works. Now seven years into his career, he sounds like he feels he’s about to hit his stride.

“I’m hoping these next seven years are my best seven,” he said. “My body feels great, I feel young, my arm is alive, I have a great feel for the offense, it’s the same offense I’ve been in. We’re getting guys who have been in for a few years now and have a better understanding.

“You become a little bit of a coach, you feel confident telling these guys what to do. ... It’s fun getting these young guys, I like these receivers, they’re hungry, they want to learn, they want to do the right thing and they want to do good stuff.”

That’s quite the compliment toward a corps of wide receivers who have been questioned from the outside.